Another good piece by David Brooks. NYT Good Leaders Make Good Schools
We often focus on holding Teachers accountable, however getting the correct management in place and enabling them to make a difference can be just as important.
And Lord knows a questionable manager can ruin a work place very quickly...
We often focus on holding Teachers accountable, however getting the correct management in place and enabling them to make a difference can be just as important.
And Lord knows a questionable manager can ruin a work place very quickly...
16 comments:
That is something lots of teachers have told me.
--Hiram
but... but... demographics is destiny! Nothing schools can do can overcome poverty and single parenthood! We have to solve poverty first.
There are tons of things schools can do to respond to problems dumped at their doors, but it's unlike they will solve any of them. Back in the day I was involved in education issues, I used to ask where the panacea room was. Nobody ever had an answer.
--Hiram
Panacea room-- I like that! :-) What bothers me is that the schools either cannot find a new one that won't fail (unlikely anyway), or they already have one (like more money, that clearly isn't), or claim that nothing at all can be done, panacea or otherwise. This article says otherwise.
Source please...
"demographics is destiny! Nothing schools can do can overcome poverty and single parenthood! We have to solve poverty first."
Source? How about your posts over these many years? How about the general plaint of the schools themselves, that they cannot do better? What else would you call it, "the soft bigotry of low expectations"?
If you think that is my position, I think you need to read with more of an open mind.
Dump some of that tea out of your too full cup. :-)
I don't have such an open mind that good judgment falls out. Every time I suggest that we "fix" the schools as the quickest way to fix the schools, I get pushback from you claiming that (most of) these poor single-parent families are handicapped and cannot learn any better. You even "proved" it recently, talking about brain development.
And yet you have just offered clear proof that the schools CAN change and quickly become much better, and the article says clearly "demography is not destiny." Are you agreeing this debate is over?
You are a hammer who sees only nails...
I do believe in improving families and schools...
You see only vouchers.
Government has had 40 years to "improve families and schools" (and so have you). I am tired of waiting, and believe vouchers would be sufficiently "disruptive" of the status quo that improvement might come rapidly. Families would improve well before 20 years from now, as better-educated kids get out of poverty and adopt better values for living.
Thankfully the majority of citizens disagree with your belief.
Vouchers may have benefits...
Unfortunately they also come with a lot of costs.
Especially to the children who are the unluckiest.
Source?
We know that Minnesotans think they have the smartest kids and best schools. They're wrong, at least for those kids suffering under the largest "gap" in the country.
And if vouchers have "costs" as you say, then perhaps you would like to compare and contrast those costs with a 50% dropout rate and having only 25% of graduates performing at grade level.
I have to say it again...
Source?
Those aren't real numbers, I sort of ginned them up from what I remember of the real numbers from metro schools. Now if you want to look up real numbers, feel free. But if you come back and say the dropout rate is only 35% and grade-level performance is 60%, I will mock you. Current performance in too many schools is simply unacceptable, certainly not six-sigma. The "cost of failure" must surely outweigh any supposed "costs" of vouchers (which you have yet to identify).
It is 1:17 AM here in Shanghai and I am unfortunately awake now doing emails until I get tired again.
However re-explaining the downsides of vouchers for the 18th time is not on the docket... Though it may help me fall back asleep.
Maybe later in another post.
consider that you may first have to create some sort of strawman voucher program and then describe the downsides of it. And I would think that fairness would dictate you compare those downsides with the equally likely benefits. I don't know of any district where voucher programs have been abandoned in favor of the status quo ante, and that should tell you something.
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